This Dutch Collector Turned His Home Into an Incredible Fossil Museum

"Ron Janssen can still recall the spot on the side of the Maas river where he found a few teeth in the mud as a child - now 62, he often returns there when the tide is low, hoping to find something more. Back then, he picked up the teeth, assuming they were from cows or horses in nearby fields. "I later found out they went back 10,000 years - they were from boars and other animals that were alive then," he says."

"It was Janssen's grandfather who sparked a curiosity for curios, a man whose attic and barn were stuffed with unfamiliar, exotic-looking objects. So he started picking up whatever caught his eye during walks along his local river, stashing the shells, stones, and bones in ever greater numbers of shoe boxes. Soon, Janssen spotted some of those finds in vitrines when he visited museums with dinosaur collections. "I picked up literally anything," he says, pausing, "But I had a good eye for things.""

"He only turned that childhood passion into an adult hobby five or six years ago. "It was a time to spoil myself," he says of finally indulging in a major investment - in this case, a very different tusk from those he'd found in the mud. He spent five figures on a mammoth tooth with Dutch specialist dealer Roy Masin. It wasn't the story of the animal that transfixed him, but the object itself. "I immediately fell in love with the shape, the texture, the patina of it. For me, it's as good as a painting.""

"From there, he quickly became an avid, if picky, acquirer of such ancient treasures. Janssen doesn't rely on a certain period - Jurassic or similar - to steer his buying, but rather on gut and instinct. "I don't need much, but I need good things," he says, noting that he first started casting around for an ichthyosaur after a visit"

A man remembers finding animal teeth in river mud as a child and later learning they dated back about 10,000 years. That early discovery sparked a lasting interest in fossils, reinforced by a grandfather who collected unusual objects and filled barns and an attic with curiosities. He saved shells, stones, and bones in shoe boxes and later recognized similar items in museum displays. He began investing seriously only in adulthood, spending substantial sums on a mammoth tooth and then acquiring other prehistoric specimens such as an ichthyosaur. His buying decisions rely less on specific geological periods and more on personal instinct, focusing on quality, shape, texture, and patina.

Read at Elite Traveler